The bell in the hallway rings. Far from being saved by the bell, you're condemned by it. Now you've got to face the worst part of the high school experience: the cafeteria. If the food doesn't kill you, the social awkwardness will.

You can see the clique structure is pretty well-defined: there's a table full of muscle-bound men and women joking and arm-wrestling; a table with dweebs in high pants and thick glasses rolling weird-shaped dice; and then there's a conclave of pompadoured cool kids scratching their initials into the last table with their switchblade knives (and combing their hair with their switchblade combs.

Presuming you made it through that last hellish sentence, where do you want to sit?

Sit with the Jocks

You walk toward the table of jocks, trying to puff yourself up and look as buff as possible. "Hey, guys, can I sit here?" you ask, gesturing to an empty seat.

"Whatever, dork," one of the lacrosse girls says, sliding over to cover the empty seat, "do you even lift?"

"Yeah, I pick up stuff and put it down all the time," you say. That doesn't appear to be the right answer, as they take turns pelting you with luncheon debris until you walk away.

You walk by the jock table, to see if you can jockey yourself into a position in their clique, but one of them trips you as you walk by. You fall, but catch yourself in the push-up position. The jock who tripped you thinks that you're challenging him to a push-up contest, so he gets down and starts pushing up, too. You end up losing the contest, but the jocks accept you as one of their own for the duration of the lunch hour.

or

As you walk past the jock table, one of them says, "think fast, dweeb!" and hucks a football (the oblong kind, not the spherical black-and-white one). You catch it without breaking stride and toss it back to the guy.
"Nice one! You should go out for sports, yo!" one of the jocks says, and invites you to sit with them.

As you joke and horseplay, you ponder the irony of jocks telling other people to think at all, let alone fast.

or

You walk by the jock table, pondering how many high-fives and headbutts it would take to get these guys to like you. Then you grab your arm, and yell, "Ow! Do any of you have a bandage?"

"Whu?" one of the lacrosse girls says, looking up from the spoon she's bending into a bracelet.

"See, I'm totally cut, yo," you say, flexing. The jocks laugh, invite you to sit with them, and you have a marginally pleasant time arm-wrestling and horsing around for the lunch hour.

or

You walk towards the jock table, psyching yourself up for whatever hazing you'll have to endure to join their clique. One of the lacrosse girls catches your eye, and you nod back. "Why don't you come sit with us?" she asks.

"Really?" you respond.

"Yeah, as long as you can beat me at armwrestling," she says. You lose two games out of three, but she's impressed you managed to beat her even once, so you get to hang out with the muscle set for the lunch hour.

You walk up to the nerd table, but before you can sit down, one of them extends a fist.

"Really?" you ask, incredulous.

"Oh, I'm not suggesting we engage in fisticuffs, good sir," the nerd says, "I'm challenging you to a game or rock-paper-scissors-pony-python."

He explains the rules, which involve throwing hand signs that represent the rock, paper, etc., and which hand sign trumps the other.

You throw a rock, then a pony, then a python, but he beats you with paper (which covers rock), python (which bites the pony), and scissors (which snip the python's fangs). You not only get a few weak punches on the arm for losing, but you can't even find a seat at the nerd table. Weak.

You ask if you can sit at the nerd table, but they're not sure that you're nerdy enough to join their crew. You win them over by reciting the entire periodic table in under 90 seconds, and get to spend your lunch hour dissecting the minutiae of fantasy universes and real-world science.

or

You step up to the nerd table, put on your best nasal whine, and ask if you can sit with them. The head nerd demands that you roll for initiative before you sit down and hands you a 15-sided die. You toss it, and after he gives you a +1 for your inherent dweebiness, you make the roll and are allowed to join them. You have a great time discussing fantasy universes, quoting the Saga of Professor What, and various other nerdy pursuits.

or

You walk up to the nerd table and ask if you can sit with them. The head nerd waves his hand from right to left and says, "you don't want to sit with us."

"Actually," you say, "technically, the Mind Trick involves waving the hand from LEFT to RIGHT. Right to left, as you've just done, is a Force toss, and since I'm not flying across the room right now, I'd say you have much to learn of the ways of the Force."

The head nerd bows his head, out-nit-picked, and you get to spend the lunch hour whooping it up with your fellow dweebs

or

The nerds at the nerd table turn up their noses when you ask if you can sit with them. You indicate your loneliness by saying, "Wyatt, before he created Lisa," and that wins a few of them over. The head nerd demands you find the tallest tree in the Distant Woods and cut it down with a herring, but you say you're not going to do that, and he finally relents.

You actually have a good time with the nerds; I mean, they're obviously the smartest and funniest kids in the school, and you're thrilled to share their table.

You walk up to the cool kids' table. "Um, hey, guys, is it, like, cool if I sit here? I could really use a friend or two, and you guys seem really cool, y'know?" you say.
"Wow, it sounds like you really care about whether or not you sit here, and you're genuinely impressed by us," one of the kids says, looking up briefly from the tattoo designs he's sketching in his notebook.

You walk toward the cool kid's table, but just before you get close enough for them to reject you, you slip on a puddle of unidentifiable goo on the floor. You fall backward, tossing your tray into the air, but just before you land on your butt, you kick one leg, stick a hand out, and pull off a slick breakdancing move. You spin around 360 degrees on your back, leap up, and catch everything on your tray before it can land. One of the cool kids actually lowers his shades and looks over them at you (the cool kid equivalent of jumping up and hugging you), and you get to spend lunch hour whooping it up with the hip kids.

or

You wander past the cool kids' table, barely sliding your eyes sideways at the greasers and mods sitting there, maybe giving an almost imperceptible nod.
"Hey," one of the leather-clad, pompadour'd guys says.

You pause and look about halfway to his direction, careful not to look like you're paying attention.

The guy slides over a little bit, enough so you can sit down. You spend your lunch hour trying to look cool, and mostly succeeding, winning over the cool kids by being just as disinterested and enigmatic as they are. Or, y'know, whatever.

or

You stride through the cafeteria, doing your best to look like you don't care whether you end up sitting next to anyone, and suggesting with your demeanor that people would be lucky to get to sit next to you. You slow your pace almost imperceptibly as you pass the cool kid's table. You nod your head at one of the girls, who is sitting there practicing her duckface, and she slides over just enough to let you sit down. You try and conceal your elation at being accepted into the clique, and practice being as moxious as the other kids.